


Cycles and Circles

by FireEye



Category: Moon Hunters (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 15:00:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20641082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: Mardokh conquers Issaria.  Generations later, the Song persists.





	Cycles and Circles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveradept](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveradept/gifts).

A riverbed cut across their path, cracked and dry under the midday sun. Their crossing left broken tracks in the silt and sand that had settled within its basin, and the far bank crumbled into dust as they clambered their way up it.

Tanith brushed her hands together, then propped them on her hips as she regarded the eastern horizon from which they’d traveled.

“They say this used to be a great marshland, following the mighty river hewn from the Goddess’ body.”

“That is what they say,” her companion answered. Careful of the lute secured to his traveling pack, he dropped to the ground beside her to dig a pebble out from between his heel and the base of his sandal strap.

Tanith dropped into a crouch beside him.

“It reminds me of a tale.”

_It is said that Eth had lived in the desert all her life. On her journey to find the Queen of Heaven, she came to the Great River and was amazed at all the water. It coursed through the reeds and it fell from the sky, and she felt joy. She even managed to befriend the River Guardian, who rose from the depths and granted her safe passage across the river._

Bal gave her a curious look. “Wasn’t the hero named differently last time you told me this tale?”

“What does it matter their names?” Tanith scoffed. As if the First King wouldn’t have had the names of those who resisted his uprising erased from history. “What does it matter have they names or not? Anyway, the rest of the story is true.”

She helped him to his feet, and they continued on. Before long, a song had found its way to Tanith’s lips, and once his ears found the pattern, Bal joined his deeper voice to hers in harmony.

***

The great cedar forest was gone, long before their time.

The charred husks of the trees remained, here and there, weathered and hollow, and when the wind blew through the heart of the old forest, on a dark night when the Goddess’s Fallen Heroes peered down from Heaven, it was whispered one could hear the songs of old.

That was presuming one could _find_ the heart of the old forest in the desert that had become of it.

“I don’t hear anything,” Bal said.

Tanith hushed him.

Night wore on, until the gleam of morning shimmered in the distance. Bal had fallen asleep, but Tanith recited quietly to herself.

_It is said that the Faithful sent the Seer-Beyond-Stone to guide a Songweaver to the Empress’ side, that she might hear all that came before. And these songs she passed on to her apprentice before she died, and her apprentice to his apprentice in secret, through the years that the Faithful and the Tribes and the Majesty of the Moon would never be forgotten, even under the rule of the Sun._

There was still _life_ here, certainly. Animals that survived and made their homes anew, There were even a handful of settlements, each with its own Priest-Commander of the Sun.

And two pilgrims, following the path of the Moon.

***

The desert was vast. Parched. A light breeze whistled through the windswept cliffs and across the mouths of old, dry wells.

Sand had swallowed the rest.

For miles from any direction, one could see the Sun Disc of the First City, and the dotted settlements and pyramid’s surrounding it. Mardokh’s tomb rose above them all – a monument to Ashur gleaming in the sunlight.

“They say the First King lived a hundred years, but that by the end there were none to attend him,” Bal remarked, staring into the distance. “He died alone.”

Tanith frowned.

_It is said that the First King’s Brother, who died in exile and whose name was stricken from history, once fought the Shield at the Duskfolk village. Although he was victorious, he saw what he had done in the name of Mardokh, the Sun’s Tyrant, and was filled with remorse. From there, he preached only peace and a union of the tribes wherever he traveled._

They weren’t headed towards the First City. If anything, their path followed the footsteps of the King’s brother, seeking peace.

The mountains were dark in the distance.

***

Uruk flourished.

They bowed to the Sun Temple Guard stationed at the edge of town, who greeted them joyously and invited them for a song. Singers were still held in high honor, if not for all the reasons they used to be.

After all, who needed songs to record history when the Book of the Sun was immutably written in every Temple?

But entertainment paid their passage, and amid the Temple of the Sun were their brothers and sisters.

Once their songs were sung in honor of the First King and Ashur the Glorious, and they were left to their own devices, they wandered at their leisure. High atop the mountain, Uruk was closest to Heaven, and from its peak one could see all of Issaria below.

They came to a rest, and Bal’s gaze was drawn to a building near the overlook.

“They say the House of Learning was once a Temple in honor of the Goddess,” he said, under his breath.

Tanith gave him a coy look. “That’s not all they say...”

_It is said that a messenger of the Goddess came from Heaven to deliver a golden apple to the most radiant being in Issaria, but that when they beheld the beauty they were to give it to, it slipped from their fingers and landed in Uruk. The Rose walked these lands, guided by the Goddess, and also arrived in Uruk. But rather than keep it for herself, it is said she gave it to her lover._

Bal rolled his eyes. “I should have expected that one.”

He nudged her as Tanith chuckled, unable to contain a smile, himself. But people were staring, and they risked being overheard.

***

The frost-capped peaks caught the light of the sun, glistening like opals.

Their path would not lead that way, but Bal had to wonder anyway, “Do you think they truly existed, or were they ever only in song?”

“Who?”

“The Voice,” Bal said. “They say they exist even now, in hiding. Waiting for the Moon to return.”

Tanith scoffed. “Everything in song is true.”

“Even the song, heard only in an old woman’s dream, that we foolishly follow now?”

Tanith smiled, and recited.

_It is said that to find the First Temple, one must follow the Secret Whispers of the Silver Sister to the Temple of Old. There, one must make offerings first to the Pale Dancer, Then the Queen of Heaven, Then the Great Mother._

_There, the doors to Heaven will open and one will meet the Goddess._

**Author's Note:**

> So I was trying to think how cyclical but different the myths theme could be, and suddenly frame story. I hope you like it. :)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Cycles and Circles](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24304240) by [GoLBPodfics (GodOfLaundryBaskets)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodOfLaundryBaskets/pseuds/GoLBPodfics)


End file.
